Printed Pictures: Thoughts / Planning

The screenprint workshop left me feeling a little bit torn between using it as a final print process, or using a combination of stencil monoprinting and monotype. 

SCREENPRINTING

• I really like the effect of printing photographs, and how this creates a contrast between this highly digital image and the drawn aspects of my work. I think this speaks really clearly about the 'two worlds' which exist in Murakami's novels. 
• The clean colours that you can achieve in screen-printing are really nice and I think suit the bold shapes of my work. 

MONOPRINTING

• I prefer the unpredictability and messiness of mono-printing. Visual interest is created so easily through overlapping shapes and colours, and you can achieve really nice ghost images in the prints. 
• Monoprinting provides a surreal and quirky quality to my work which really suits the sense of otherworldliness I am trying to achieve within my images. 
• The disadvantage of mono-printing is that it lacks structure and the ability to create repeats of the same image. In some ways the unpredictability of it is very attractive, but I think would become frustrating when I have got particular final images in mind. 

The obvious solution is to combine the two print processes together, but how would I do this? Do I screenprint photographs onto monoprints? or use shapes created through monoprinting and make them into screenprint positives trying to retain as much of the texture/ overlap of colours as possible? 

MOVING FORWARD: 

• I need to do more experimentation in order to decide how I am going to make these final images: 
• Monotype onto stencil monoprints
• experiment in photoshop using monoprinted shapes and photographs to make positives
• Do more monoprinting, creating images using the motifs of: moon and fish
• Do some stencil monoprinting that are more simple and bold in their colour and shape - only 1 colour and then add in the second with monotype/screenprinting?